4 ms·

> Having been there, too, and knowing many others who have had similar experiences, I don't think you fully understand what it's like for most people working lo

> Having been there, too, and knowing many others who have had similar experiences, I don't think you fully understand what it's like for most people working low-wage jobs. FWIW I'm from the UK so things might be very different here. > The bakery accidentally sourced those ingredients So your argument is about intent, rather than just the final effect? So what do you think about the tech workers who believe their job puts out more good than evil into the world? I work on healthcare tech and the above calculus works for me.

ddevault 6y ago
>FWIW I'm from the UK so things might be very different here. Yeah, it's different. One obvious difference is that you don't have the threat of preventable death or debilitating injury bankrupting you overnight. >So your argument is about intent, rather than just the final effect? So what do you think about the tech workers who believe their job puts out more good than evil into the world? No, it's not about intent, it's about accountability. You can only address the problems that you are aware of. If you're talking about unreasonable standards then it is unreasonable to hold someone accountable for problems that they're not aware of. And if you believe your job to do more good than evil, and I disagree, then that reflects poorly on my opinion of you. I do not hold the ignorant accountable, but I do hold the irrational accountable.
- dan-robertson 6y ago
  On the accountability of megacorps, I think there are roughly two groups they are accountable to: 1. The shareholders, who care about growth and potential future profits 2. The pampered employees For the first group, I don’t think they will effect much positive change (from time to time some massive fund like blackrock will say that companies should have better corporate governance, and positive environmental and societal effects, but this is purely words and won’t affect their investments. Other investors want to invest in ESG funds of “good” companies but they also want those funds to have the same returns as the S&P500 ...) For the second group (who are also likely shareholders but only to a minor extent), I think they have a lot of power to hold these companies to account, otherwise they wouldn’t be so pampered. So I think it’s an important question as to why they don’t succeed in doing this at all. I suspect many employees either don’t care or think about ethics at all, or don’t particularly object to what the company does. Being charitable, they may nor care because the issues concern parts of the vast business which are not so close to what the person works with. Others may just not know about many objectionable projects (surely the company would be motivated to keep them relatively secret if internal backlash seemed likely.) But there also seem to be many employees who do find out about these things and care and complain. The energy seems to be dissipated entirely by internal discussion or meme boards (people can post “company is doing X and it’s awful” and nothing will change but maybe the poster feels like they’ve done something now) and the few instances where someone tries to do some kind of workplace organising, gets fired, wins some money in an unfair dismissal suit, gets some media attention, and goes to work at a think tank or something, hence no longer posing a threat to the company. Perhaps one reason people don’t organise around such issues is that they feel some kind of embarrassment about it—they have this relaxed pampered lifestyle and high pay, so they would look silly to be complaining about it.

ddevault 6y ago

>FWIW I'm from the UK so things might be very different here. Yeah, it's different. One obvious difference is that you don't have the threat of preventable death or debilitating injury bankrupting you overnight. >So your argument is about intent, rather than just the final effect? So what do you think about the tech workers who believe their job puts out more good than evil into the world? No, it's not about intent, it's about accountability. You can only address the problems that you are aware of. If you're talking about unreasonable standards then it is unreasonable to hold someone accountable for problems that they're not aware of. And if you believe your job to do more good than evil, and I disagree, then that reflects poorly on my opinion of you. I do not hold the ignorant accountable, but I do hold the irrational accountable.

dan-robertson 6y ago
On the accountability of megacorps, I think there are roughly two groups they are accountable to: 1. The shareholders, who care about growth and potential future profits 2. The pampered employees For the first group, I don’t think they will effect much positive change (from time to time some massive fund like blackrock will say that companies should have better corporate governance, and positive environmental and societal effects, but this is purely words and won’t affect their investments. Other investors want to invest in ESG funds of “good” companies but they also want those funds to have the same returns as the S&P500 ...) For the second group (who are also likely shareholders but only to a minor extent), I think they have a lot of power to hold these companies to account, otherwise they wouldn’t be so pampered. So I think it’s an important question as to why they don’t succeed in doing this at all. I suspect many employees either don’t care or think about ethics at all, or don’t particularly object to what the company does. Being charitable, they may nor care because the issues concern parts of the vast business which are not so close to what the person works with. Others may just not know about many objectionable projects (surely the company would be motivated to keep them relatively secret if internal backlash seemed likely.) But there also seem to be many employees who do find out about these things and care and complain. The energy seems to be dissipated entirely by internal discussion or meme boards (people can post “company is doing X and it’s awful” and nothing will change but maybe the poster feels like they’ve done something now) and the few instances where someone tries to do some kind of workplace organising, gets fired, wins some money in an unfair dismissal suit, gets some media attention, and goes to work at a think tank or something, hence no longer posing a threat to the company. Perhaps one reason people don’t organise around such issues is that they feel some kind of embarrassment about it—they have this relaxed pampered lifestyle and high pay, so they would look silly to be complaining about it.